


You are the Star that Brings Me Home

by NianaiBell



Series: #ourtwoweeksofpositivity [7]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Beaches, Confused Lance (Voltron), Cuba, Cuban Lance (Voltron), F/M, Gen, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Lance is a smart cookie, M/M, MINOR Allurance, Mutual Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Post Season S7, Stargazing, Stars, pre Klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-29 23:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15739161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NianaiBell/pseuds/NianaiBell
Summary: Day 7: StargazingLance doesn't get everything he's every wanted after the war. He's not surprised but he goes home happy enough. There's some things he can't shake though and tonight he gets a needed call.





	You are the Star that Brings Me Home

**Author's Note:**

> Bluberri_pomchi on IG has a wonderful idea started for the current chaos in the VLD fandom. And since I don't art as much I wanted to participate with this little bit. Look for the tags #ourtwoweeksofpositivity to see the wonderful stuff everyone is creating.
> 
> Did I need to write another piece of Lance being confused about his feelings and having a hard time? No.  
> Did I anyway? yup.
> 
> So I have a couple more places I want to take this piece so this is potentially part 1 of 3? If y'all are down for it I would love to keep going with this.

Another small wave washed over the tops of his feet, the chill pricking small tingles up the length of his legs and to the water sprayed edge of his hastily rolled jeans. A puff of heated air left cold parted lips, hands digging as deep as possible into his old beaten up jacket to seek out more warmth. Hood firmly in place and a stolen blue turtleneck from Luis’s closet to buffer against the worst of the frigid air.

The cold was starting to numb his toes, Lance thought absently, testing the rigidity of his digits by wiggling them around in the sand, stirring up tiny whirlpools of shell fragments and water.

The numbness was to be expected he supposed, he hadn’t even managed to escape the watchful eyes of his mother and siblings until well after sunset, most of the night stars already blinking steadily overhead when he finally got the chance to sink his feet into the surf.

Being home had been a learning curve for him. Not that he wasn’t eternally grateful to see his family again, honestly Lance wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to do enough positive karma into the universe for giving him the chance to be back with his family on earth, all of them safe and happy together again. But the last month had passed in a blur between the disbursement of the Garrison refugees venturing into the now unrecognizable landscape of their homes. His family had kept him busy even after his arrival home, an easy pattern to fall back into for the old Lance but a difficult change for this space weary paladin. 

Over a month ago (a lifetime seemed to fit better though) Voltron had split up to give everyone a chance to find their families and spend time being home. Lance had a fight on his hands when he told his own family that he was going with Hunk to gather the rest of the Garrett household from the ruins of the work camps. His mother left him with an earful and a bone crushing hug and he promised to be back closer to four days rather than four years this time. Having Earth once again a free planet did make things easier and before the week’s end Hunk was home with his family while Lance was trekking home to Cuba.

Pidge of course spent the last few weeks with her family, catching up on all the chaos of the siege and already hard at work concocting schemes with her brother. She had a second chance at being with her whole family, an impossible dream almost five years ago, now a reality and the girl had done her best to make the most of it. Lance had to admit he’d never seen the girl happier and did his best not to cry watching the puddle of hugs the family frequently seemed to digress into.

The Garrison was lucky enough to have Shiro, Keith, Coran, Romelle and Allura all stay behind, the aliens eager to learn the customs of Earth. Before Lance even left he heard that Shiro already begun to map out the majority of the Atlas’s systems. Coran seemed happy as a clam to stick around and dig into the ship's new systems, studying the differences from his own castle. The Garrison staff had quickly grown attached to Romelle too, granting her access to many of the more secretive areas of the base with relative ease, in return for working with the cadets on customs of alien species and history of the last thousand years. Barely a month out of the war and Allura was setting up diplomatic meetings with many of the world’s leading figures, already charming her way as the figurehead of the coalition on Earth.

Before Lance had left for Cuban, Allura had stopped him outside of the base’s gates, enthusiastically congratulating him on his efforts in the war and thanking him for everything he’d done for her and Voltron. When an uncomfortable silence settled on the two Lance could’ve guessed the princess’s words before they left her mouth. _I do love you Lance, but I don’t think it’s quite the same way as you love me. You deserve someone who puts you first and who can also appreciate the man you’ve become_. Lance had laughed, full of heartache, sadness, gratitude, resignation and irony, stooping to kiss Allura’s forehead softly and thanking her for everything. He’d immediately hoped into Red, ignoring Veronica’s soft gaze from the landing strip just as chose to ignore the well of tears streaking hotly down face.

A small part of him had always known loving Allura would be a wonderful mix of happiness and heartbreak and everything inbetween but the actual utterance of it all hit him harder than he thought and he found for a while after that food didn’t taste quite like he remembered, more like ash in his mouth and that it was harder to get out of bed in the morning.

Lance stooped down to consider a shell at his feet, the perfectly intact spirals soothing to his still aching chest to remind him once again he was home. He watched as a small claw emerged from the dwelling, quickly snapping its front pincers together before escaping into the safety under the sand. He stood up, eyes following the natural ebb and flow of the sea, still lost in thought.

As for Keith, well. Lance had expected a bit of a brush off from the other, vividly remembering the _several_ times the other male had left them all, _left Lance_ , while they were in space. Instead Keith had found him the day before he was to leave, explaining he would be staying at the Garrison, being put to work immediately now as an honorary staff member. Lance had congratulated him about going from the school’s resident bad boy to a model leader and earned a small chuckle from Keith. But something was off with the paladin, looking like he had words stuck to his throat. Eventually Keith had ran a rough hand through his ever growing locks and pinned Lance with a glance that had the boy rooted in place from the seriousness of it. “I’m right here if you need me, don’t hesitate to call.” Lance had to swallow hard at the strangeness of Keith’s tone before giving a quick jerk of his head in understanding and clapped a hand on Keith’s shoulder, thanks on lips. He quickly shook himself out of whatever trance Keith seemed to pull on them, flipping his hair to the side and joking about how he’d survived much worse than this so he could probably handle his family. That had pulled a small smirk to Keith’s lips and Lance had to walk away before his body could betray him.

Back in Cuba, the memories of Voltron seemed unreal. He could hardly believe his own stories, now well worn from retelling them as night time stories to his nieces and nephews. It all seemed so far away, like he was simply a story teller for someone else's adventures. But the scars lining his back and arms were proof enough, as were the nightmares of his own death that startled him awake most nights of the week. He would wake up yelling, clothes thoroughly drenched from sweat, hair matted to his forehead and cold adrenaline prickling at his limbs. Those were the roughest times so far. Thankfully though there were positive reminders too; occasionally when Hunk and Pidge managed to make it to their almost weekly check in calls, tossing around fond memories of their adventures, it always grounded him a little more solidly in the events of the last four years.

 _But what now_? His brain always managed to whisper at the base of his skull like an unwelcome gust of cold air. The thought alone seemed daunting. He’d survived so much, so many actual monsters and space madness to come home. The thought of saving his family had driven him so long and to be here with them seemed like enough of a reward. But already his body was tense on too much adrenaline and not enough outlets, his brain on watch for the next mission in need of his attention.

His walk had been a well worn favorite from childhood and he finally came across a small familiar outcropping of rocks standing cold and still against the crash of waves and the deep purple black of the night. Climbing his way up the old footholds on the rocks he managed to hoist himself up and onto the rocks, adjusting to sprawl long legs off the edge, barley within reach of the mist of the ocean’s crash.

For several long moments he sat there, mind purposefully blank to let the sound of the sea wash over him. His eyes traced the dark sky, well lit with constellations finally familiar to him. The cold made the stars seem even brighter against the vastness of space. Space that he had traveled through to get back to this space hunk of floating space rock with precious things surrounding him.

He stayed like that longer than he cared to keep track off, letting the cold calm his body and breathing while the blinking of stars above watched over him.

Lance knew he should make his way back soon. He’d walked quite a bit away from the dark lit house and he couldn’t imagine how long he’d been sitting there but he could feel the cold seep through his clothes and into his limbs, an ache building deep in his shoulder blades. He didn’t bother with his phone, the light probably blinding and he knew didn’t have anyone to talk to anyways. Chewing his lips, a familiar voice replayed back _don’t hesitate to call_ and Lance outwardly groaned. Geez it’s not like he needed to talk to Keith and that Keith could’ve totally called first. It wasn’t like he missed him either? Lance felt the lie in his own thoughts, shaking the sneaky betrayal of words in his brain to quiet them. The thought had been occurring to him more frequently the longer he was away from the Garrison. Did he actually miss Keith? Or was finally having the man back in his life to be separated again so quickly messing with him and his already confusing emotions.

Lance looked up to the stars above, thinking about the time difference from there to the states. It’d be dark there too. The Garrison’s still enforced curfew dictating that everyone should be in their brackets and done for the night. A small part wondered if Keith was actually following any of the rules anyways, remembering with a soft chuckle Keith’s utter distaste of Garrison policies from rare rants from the man.

The vibrations of his phone surprised Lance enough for a gasp to escape him, hand automatically reaching for the old cell tucked into the pocket of his jacket. He took a deep breath to reorder his scrambled thoughts before bracing for the bright light of the screen. Lit up on the display were the words “Incoming Call from: Red Samurai”

Straight shock flashed through Lance’s body, wondering if Keith had really tapped into his brain or something before Lance had left.

Realizing he’d been staring a moment too long he fumbled through opening the phone with cold heavy fingertips, bringing it to his ear to catch the tail end of “-eith, dumbass idea.”

Breathless from the cold and a faint layer of happiness in his chest, Lance’s voice came out more along the lines of a breath “Hello?”

Instantly he was bombarded by a gravelly disbelieving voice saying his name.

“Lance? Hey. I um, hey.” Was what he settled on and Lance couldn’t help giggling at that.

“Have you ever talked on the phone before cause wow man.” Lance teased gently, happy to hear the rush of breath at his ear, some slight reminder that Keith was there on the other end, intentionally calling Lance of all people.

A staticy groan hit his ears as Keith spoke into the receiver. “Yeah of course. I just didn’t know if you’d pick up and when you did I guess I wasn’t expecting to hear your voice.”

“Keith that is how phones work remember? It’s been a while since we’ve used them but I promise that hasn’t changed.”

“I know, but it’s been a while since I’ve heard your voice.” There was a moment of quite where Lance could almost here Keith banging his head onto something metallic sounding. He smiled at the phone and adjusted so he could lay down.

“What are you doing up Keith? It’s got to be around midnight there.”

“Couldn’t sleep. Something was stuck in my head so I went for a walk on the roof of the Garrison.”

Lance laughed at his prediction’s accuracy. “What a rule breaker.”

Keith chuckled a bit at that. “What about you? It's like three over there right?”

Shrugging his shoulders even though the other couldn’t see, he watched the sky wondering if Keith was watching it too. “Mhh yeah it is. Couldn’t sleep either and it’s a little easier to breath out at the beach then in a room that I'm sharing with Louis.”

“Fair enough. So how is home life? You’re mom seemed like she wasn’t going to let you more than like five feet from her when she was here. You escaped then?”

“She’s been better now that I’m back at the house. She’s been like a hawk but she figures since I spent so long in a space lion trying to _save the universe_ that I would be fine walking to the store and back on my own.”

“How kind of her.” A rough laugh from Keith’s end that had Lance smiling.

“She’d agree with you.” He ignored the quick imagery of Keith at his house, meeting his mother and the rest of the family. For some reason he couldn’t make it seem like a regular introduction of a friend to the family. They’d been through too much for that.

Not realizing he’d been quite for a moment too long, Keith’s slightly concerned prompting of his name brought Lance back to their conversation. “Sorry, just thinking.”

“It’s been a while since we’ve had time to do much of that.” Keith agreed easily enough. A pause for just a beat and a tacked on, “You can talk to me about it if you want to.”

“Keith _I-_.” Lance bit at his tongue, unsure of what he was trying to say.

“No pressure buddy. Know that I really did mean you could call whenever. I’m here.”

“Even at three over there?” Easy teasing, easy back and forth like Lance was used to. That’s what he was expecting. Instead he got a tone that made the words seem to have more depth. “I would answer if it was you.”

Lance ignored the warm flush in his body at the confidence behind the words. He closed his eyes tightly against the feelings in his chest, speaking into the receiver before Keith could utter anything else he wasn’t ready for.

“Keith?”

He seemed to hum through the phone, close enough of an answer for Lance.

“Are you watching the stars right now?”

“....Yeah. You?” His voice had dropped lower than Lance had heard it go and he squeezed his lids together before opening them up to gaze at the night. “Mmmhmm.”

They fell into silence for a while. Comfort in the steady breathing from both ends and the cool of the night. Having Keith on the end was like a life line that Lance hadn't realized he needed so desperately. He couldn’t find it in him to gather the strength or _want_ to move an inch from his current post. He didn’t realize he whispered something until Keith’s voice brushed against his ear. “Wait, you’d want that?”

Lance thought about it for a long moment. Weighing if the words were just something meant for the wind or for Keith. Finally he smiled, voice matching the lowness of Keith's.

“Yeah, I really do wish you were here.”

They both fell quiet for a while again. Lance was pretty sure he was on his own on this one. Keith had called out of a need to check in on his right hand man, nothing more. Whatever level of friendship he had convinced himself of was one sided and he tried to squash the thought before it could hurt his chest anymore than it already had.

“I wish I could be there too Lance.”

A small, grateful laugh tore out of his chest and before he could snatch it back he whispered into the phone.

“Good.”


End file.
